The Space In Between Us
by MaidenOfTheWorld
Summary: [Collaboration with The GD Patman on twitter] Post-BvS: Diana has been asked by Bruce to help him form a team of Metahumans, but does he understand what that means? Is she ready to sacrifice her life as a regular woman to once again proudly wear the mantle of Wonder Woman? She's arrived at his lake house to finally tell him where she stands. [[WONDERBAT]]


**The Space In Between Us**

 **Words:** 6,137 words  
 **Timeline:** DCEU (post-Batman V Superman)  
 **Collaboration with:** The_GD_Patman [Twitter]

* * *

The view of Bruce's property from her car was a breathtaking one. Hidden by a surrounding barricade of trees, his modern glass house clashed with the natural atmosphere that was highlighted by the lake resting peacefully behind it. Somehow, he had managed to escape the busy city of Gotham with a residence off the cusp of the city limits. Being so far separated from the town he supposedly represented – the good and the evil, the rumors she had heard at the museum party by other socialite guests painting quite the picture before she ever met the Batman in battle – must have made his role as a protector a daunting feat.

How could he not see that amassing a team of 'Metahumans' together would be even more treacherous, more grandiose than either of them could possibly handle?

Diana sighed to herself and looked down, checking the time on her phone in order to determine just how long she had been idling in pitiful contemplation in the woods. For forty-two minutes, her brown-eyed gaze had been fixated on the clear walls of the house as if she could potentially spy Bruce moving about inside and channel her thoughts with an imaginative power she didn't truly possess. If he spotted her lurking, she would be forced to face him and could finally defeat this anxiousness inside of her. A proud Amazonian, the fear of speaking to a man was enough to turn her stomach in shame.

Even though it was the fear brought on by the loss of another man that was keeping her from facing the Batman and his outrageous request.

She lifted her phone off of her lap and scrolled through her list of contacts to locate the phone number that Bruce had emailed her. After asking for her help and letting her walk away at Clark's funeral, he had sent her his contact information as well as the address to his expensive estate. She had driven herself over from her hotel in the city with every intention of going inside. After all, if she could face off against the monster known as Doomsday, surely Wonder Woman could go toe-to-toe with the Batman if need be.

Choosing to weaponize her concerns, Diana slammed her thumb down onto the call button and listened to the monotone ringing with baited breath.

Luckily, she did not need to wait long for someone to pick up the other end of the line. No more than two chimes sounded off before an aged, refined voice answered, "Hello?

It surprised Diana to not hear Bruce through the other end of the call. "Hello," she replied reflexively while her brain determined how best to respond to what was most likely a secretary speaking on Mr. Wayne's behalf. "My name is Diana Prince. I was told to come by his house to speak with Bruce Wayne regarding his… outreach program." Unaware of the information he disclosed to his staff, she chose to remain vague due to justified caution.

"Outreach program?" The confusion in the 'secretary's' voice proved that she was right to be wary with her words.

"The one developed by" – mentioning another powerful name might speed the process along, Diana guessed – "Lex Luthor."

A heavy pause weighed on the line. Then, when the man's voice seemed to return to him, his tone was so cheery that it compelled her to smile slightly to herself. "Well then, you'll want the entrance around back. I shall meet you there." The call clicked off once he was done speaking.

"Around back?" Diana murmured to herself while staring at the screen of her phone, confirming that she had indeed been hung up on.

The ground rumbling beneath her car stole her attention away from her device, though. Looking up, it was impossible not to notice how the water of the lake was suddenly overcome by massive ripples. The house was stationary, but some of the birds that had been resting in nearby trees flew off in a fright. Diana immediately shifted her car into drive and moved onto the open path circling the property. Her speed was slow so that she could remain careful in her approach, until she realized what the source of all of the commotion was: the back entrance she had been instructed to use was opening from within the lake, placed directly across the water from the house.

"Of course." Diana unknowingly spoke her thought aloud as she picked up speed to reach the secret opening. She listened to the mechanics of the trap doors as they pulled apart while she brought her car around with ease, only slowing down so as to align her Mercedes with the ramp perfectly. From that perspective, it looked as if she was leaving the world of all things natural and calm and preparing to enter the darkness at the bottom of her descent.

A Persephone of her own accord, off to see Hades and his ferryman.

Diana unintentionally revved her car's engine as she drove downward into the underwater garage of Bruce Wayne. The path was compacted as it spiraled downwards slowly but surely – reminding her then of Dante's Inferno, an equally troubling analogy. The foreboding iron gate that lifted out of her way flew upwards as if it anticipated her driving at a much more dangerous speed onto the leveled bridge hidden behind it.

Once it disappeared, she came face to face with the world of the Batman.

Diana parked suddenly in front of red garage doors at the end of the laneway. She had been immediately and quite obviously shocked by Bruce's 'underworld' of his own creation. Her previously consuming caution lost control of her sensibility as she allowed her curiosity to lead her out of her car in an awestruck hurry. The air was first to greet her with its damp, cool graze that easily invaded the thin layers of clothing she wore. While she inspected the tricking waterfalls as they fell into the pooling waters beneath the bridge, a proper greeting was then issued to her.

"I'm so glad you decided to come by," cheered the same voice she had heard on the phone. Diana straightened her spine when she turned to face the man and his overtly amicable approach despite the sly tone to his voice. He was dressed like a tailor from the 1920's yet he easily matched the sullen tone of his employer. However, despite how she might try to be wary of making any personal contact with the presumed secretary, his evident admiration was just as genuine as it was humbling. "I have been wanting to thank you in person ever since the battle at Gotham Harbour. If it hadn't been for you, I'd be out of a job. And after so twenty or so years as a butler / co-conspirator to a vigilante, you become quite used to a particular lifestyle."

The chuckle he ended his quip with inspired one of her own. "I don't remember seeing you on the battlefield." Diana hoped he saw her cheekiness as playful rather than stale.

The butler reached the bottom of the stairs next to the BatMobile with a smirk on his face. "No, I am much more in the shadows than the Batman himself. My name is Alfred Pennyworth, miss, and I am the underappreciated glue that keeps this whole operation together." Was how he chose to offer his name, along with his hand.

"Diana. Diana Prince." Her hand found his politely.

Alfred's smirk softened into a grin upon contact. They shook, and he decided that they were friendly enough for him to speak with her bluntly so soon. "I take it that 'outreach program' you mentioned was in reference to Bruce's plan to gather a super-powered 'team' together." The word was clipped, easily punctuated before he signaled her to follow him up the stairs he had just descended.

She wasn't sure what to make of that remark. As the self-professed partner in crime to Bruce, he didn't sound enthused by the idea of a metahuman fleet being formed either; this man was involved in the lifestyle that was necessary for the Batman to exist which would expose him to the horrors of crime and battle, and the mere thought of a collective of the world's strongest heroes was distasteful to him. Her curiosity had not subsided one bit she entered the secret base that she could only imagine was titled 'the BatCave'.

"This isn't something I could ignore" – she nearly bit her tongue to avoid shamefully adding the word 'anymore' onto the end of that sentence – "since it involves others like me, and Bruce is…well, _human_."

As they reached a small landing between the stairs, Alfred glanced at her before he carried on ahead. "Yes, _you_ are quite unique, aren't you? I've been doing this with Bruce for over twenty years and I don't think we have ever met anyone like you."

Diana's lipped curled in as she couldn't bring herself to explain how much merriment she felt to hear his own butler paraphrase one of the very first lines Bruce Wayne ever said to her. To appear unaffected, she cleverly said, "Will wonders never cease?"

She could guess that Alfred had read Luthor's files, as he gave her a look that made her believe he understood the reference to the hard drive's information labeling her as WW, or Wonder Woman.

The thought of the hard drive reminded her that she was in the home of the man who first tried to steal it. Politely, she steered the conversation back onto its expected track. "Is Bruce home to meet me today? I have a plane to catch this evening so I was hoping to speak to him before I go."

"He" – the word was drawn back into Alfred's mouth, along with a rather defeated-sounding breath – "is upstairs. Researching, he says. My guess is he's experimenting with his tolerance for pain."

That remark was extremely foreboding to Diana. It had the potential to mean many different things, and the butler's sullen expression did nothing to encourage her to make the rest of the trip into the main house. As a civilian, it turned her away from wanting to engage with him if he was in a place of darkness before she had the chance to talk to him.

As a 'hero', it made her want to rush upstairs and assess the situation.

Smiling despite herself, Diana kindly motioned towards the stairs that would take her to the ground floor. "May I?"

Alfred merely nodded and offered to show her the way to his charge. Once again, she followed closely behind him on a set of stairs. However, this one was much different than the ones that led her from the garage to the 'BatCave'.

This particular staircase had a tattered suit locked inside of glass case resting next to it, with a string of cruel words spray-painted across the upper body:

 **HA HA HA**

 **Joke's**

 **on you**

 **BATMAN**

Immediately, Diana noticed that the suit was much too small for Bruce. It could have been a hallmark from his crime-fighting days in his youth, one that he had suffered a great defeat in. That was the optimistic guess, she knew. The suit looked to be sized for a young teen, and given that there were no other personal statements visible anywhere else in such a sleek hideaway, it was a curious thing to wonder who owned such a striking suit.

As she came around it on the other side of the landing, her heart strings were plucked as she thought that it might have belonged to a younger crime fighter in the Batman's family.

The words in yellow paint were heartless and intentional, citing Bruce by his heroic moniker. If he had been a teen when he wore the suit, would he have been a Bat- _man_? He was being called out by the capital letters used to spell his name – it was almost like a signed piece of work by one of his enemies he acquired over the twenty or so years Alfred had mentioned.

The suit was also positioned with a weapon in hand, which typically was a symbol of a warrior's passing, to be honoured in death with their chosen weapon stationed in memory of their efforts.

Before she could think on it more, the rumbling of yet another secret passage stole her focus away. Diana watched as the wall at the top of the staircase opened as easily as a pair of sliding doors and the early evening light greeted them as they escaped the cavern below. From behind, she watched as Alfred looked to his left and simply shook his head before he stepped aside let her pass him by. It was such a sudden reaction that Diana wasn't sure what to expect when she emerged into the home of Bruce Wayne. All she had to truly look forward to was the view of the lake through the glass paneling and the awestricken realization that she had traveled beneath the entire body of water in a matter of minutes. The sophistication of the setting would hopefully act as a positive omen for the conversation that was about to take place within it.

"Alfred?" A hoarse, familiar voice beckoned from the space to the left of her. As the sliding doors closed at her back, Diana turned herself in the direction where Bruce was waiting so that she could feel as though it was now unavoidable to carry out her plan if she was so close to reaching him. The sickeningly cold tingle of fear traced her spine while her anger at such a feeling fought to subdue it; regardless of how she felt about standing tall as the champion of man again, the concept of a volatile super-powered team was something she had to deal with.

"Alfred!?" He called again, yelling with impatience.

It was time for her to be impatient too.

"I believe he's busy at the moment," she hummed softly as she strolled around the corner of the center piece to the home, entering what appeared to be Bruce's bedroom. "But I'd like to talk to you instead."

"Diana." The shock in his voice was nothing compared to his expression, and yet the surprise of her arrival could not compare to the exhaustion she saw in every edge of his face. From the creases around his eyes to the unshaven jaw that created a shadow around his mouth in the unlit space, Bruce looked as if he had been on some kind of drinking binge and had been scared back into reality. The bottles that littered his night stand were all empty, she presumed, but the one in his hand looked heavy as if it had just been uncorked.

They stared one another down for a few moments, giving Diana time to notice the television that was fixed onto the wall buzzing with a news story from CNN. It was the same reporter she saw hosting the report on Doomsday when she was exiting her Turkish Airline flight, before she had decided to transform into 'Wonder Woman' again.

Today's broadcast appeared to be focused on an interview with a group of people in CNN's studio, the caption on the bottom of the screen reading 'HOPE TRIUMPHS: STORIES OF SUPERMAN'S HEROICS'. It appeared to be about acts of Kal-El's bravery that changed the lives of the people he had rescued. The man who was speaking even had tears streaming down his face while recounting his tale. He looked to be so grateful, but the words 'bomb' and 'suspect' sounded much too confident to be said by someone weeping with gratitude.

Her gaze scrolled across the room, only to locate a laptop resting on the bed, facing away from her. As Diana focused on the device, her hearing picked up more words from what sounded like a report by a different newscaster. The man mentioned a number for how many victims were counted, how many people had passed away. Then, he mentioned the location of the tragedy he was referencing and Diana knew what the report was about: Capitol Hill.

Slowly, she returned her attention back onto Bruce. He had not moved since she made her intrusion known aside from shifting his gaping mouth into a solid flat line. It was a completely different look for the Bruce Wayne she had met time and time again; once cool and collected, focused and driven, the man before her appeared to be have fallen into a state of disrepair.

It seemed oddly impossible to find a way to begin a conversation when her perception of him had been shattered – her approach feeling inappropriate considering his evident melancholy – and yet, Bruce seemed to find the words necessary to initiate their discussion. "You should have called. I gave you my contact information for a reason."

Defensive instantly, Diana answered evenly despite her anger, "You should have given me your _personal_ number then, instead of your butler's."

Now, his frown fell to make Bruce appear as though he was sulking. The wine bottle in his grasp was brought to his lips as he took a rather improper slurp from it. All she could manage was a sharp quirk in her brow at his inappropriate behaviour. Regardless of his obsessive need to avenge Superman or his compulsion to tune into every broadcast made about the man, his wayward emotions aside, he knew he was being rude as he stared her down and she was not having any of it.

As the bottle fell, her mouth opened to speak. It was not her voice she heard, though. Bruce stormed towards her after he finished his sip and decreed, "Let's go downstairs."  
To the cave, she presumed. "Why?" She asked when he swept passed her.

Diana followed him towards the secret passageway she had just walked through, despite her question. She watched as Bruce used a handprint scanner that had blended with the wall's paneling to open the hidden entryway before he shot her a look of disbelief. "To start our work – the others have no idea we are looking for them, and we've wasted enough time as it is."

He moved onto the first step of the descending staircase and her response was already out of her mouth. "That's not why I came here, Bruce."

Suddenly, his permeating disarray dissipated. With each foot on either side of the doorway, the master of the house stared her down with a look that was even more incredulous than the last. There was a tick in his jaw that she picked up on and she planted her feet, bent her knees ever so slightly in response.

Through gritted teeth did Bruce spew his rage, "Then why _did_ you come here?" The drastic difference between the man who grasped her elbow at the museum to the worn down 'host' before her now was so striking, so depressing to Diana. Was this the real Bruce Wayne? It felt more like she was battling the Batman with her words rather than having a simple discussion with the prominent socialite.

"You needed my answer," she pointed out what she believed to be obvious information. "I came here to give it to you: I cannot help you build this team of yours, but I will come to your side and fight any battles like the one we waged against Doomsday, whenever you may need me." Clear cut and simple, Diana couldn't have imagined a more efficient way to word her stance.

Given the way he scrubbed at his prickly jawline, that wasn't the answer he was expecting to hear. He did not allow her decision to sit with him at all before jumping down her throat. "Do you remember what Doomsday was like? What he was made of? You think I can call you from any corner of the Earth and you'll show up in time to save the day?"

"You said you had a 'feeling' that we'd need to make this team, like something is coming—"

Bruce ignored her completely and carried on with his rant. "We lost the strongest man on Earth in that battle, and you expect me to call you and pray that you and your lasso and your magical bracelets will drop out of the sky again to help us out. Even with you on that battlefield, Clark _still_ died. We still lost him – right in front of our eyes – and we were powerless to stop it!"  
" _Exactly_." Diana couldn't control her volume when she fired back at him. Her lungs seized up when she shouted at him as she put more force into her voice than she had intended if she hoped to stay composed.

The agitation that radiated off of each of them was enough to keep them silent and still for the moment, she knew. She wasn't stubborn to the point of being stagnant in her views, but there was no foreseeable way Bruce could convince her to stay; how she wished she had parked her car in the driveway so that she could have said her piece and left before dealing with his foul mood.

Essentially, a stranger was asking her to put her fears related to death and loss aside, and his anger at her negative response was supposed to keep her close apparently.

Her brown-eyed gaze twitched when she noticed Bruce shift back onto the heel of the foot that was still inside his house, only for him to then rush forward down the stairs to the cave as if she'd never disputed him. Her blood was boiling!

In fact, her anger nearly erupted when he called up to her and dared to say, "If we're already hunting for the other Metahumans, I might be able to track down that picture of yours."

So insulting and he didn't have the guts to face her as he tried to bribe her into a corner. Diana couldn't stop herself from stomping down the stairs after him when the shock she experienced as a direct result of his cockiness washed away. He was trying to capitalize on what he thought was a weakness of hers – the businessman would _not_ get the upper hand over an Amazonian woman!

Before she lunged at him, she flew into the longest strip of the Batman's secret base, complete with tables covered in multiple machine parts and one being utilized by none other than Alfred. Bruce had swept passed his butler without any acknowledgement and headed towards what looked to be a massive computer set up. Diana refused to let him type a single key before she tore into him. "I don't know about your life here in Gotham City, but these sorts of calamities do not happen every day. The photograph I was hunting showed you that I was involved in the first World War – as someone who has seen how this world has developed and changed for the past century, I _know_ that what happened with Doomsday is a rare occurrence."

Bruce scoffed at her explanation. "Doomsday wasn't an accident, you know that. We have to have a strong defensive force—"

It was her turn to put a stop to him. "Based on a feeling you have? You do not listen, Bruce: I told you that uprooting these people from their lives to work as your soldiers is not reason enough to disturb their way of living. Perhaps the post-traumatic reaction you are having to Superman's death is making you believe in some sort of paranoia about monsters and the end of the world. Without solid proof, _you_ can't make the decision for me or any of the other people on Luthor's hard drive that their lifestyles are over."

Diana knew it shouldn't have given her pleasure that Bruce was visibly frustrated by her opposition of his ideals, but it most definitely did. Her joy lessened slightly when he bit out a crass retort, "Does that psychology degree you apparently have help you study antiques too?" Then, he entered his password into the computer with heavy fingers typing away.

At her wits end, Diana faced Alfred – the man experienced in interacting with _the_ Bruce Wayne, the man beneath the bat suit and cowl – in the hopes of some sort of clue as to how she should proceed. All he managed to offer her was an empathetic nod before returning to his mechanical work.

Without support or understanding, Diana decided that there was no other reason to stay. "Very well, I believe my business is concluded here," she stated coolly, resembling the tone of voice she used when they spoke for the first time at the museum, where she was wary and distant and intent on leaving him with nothing of value. "You have my email address; if something comes up of the utmost importance, you know how to contact me." On that dismissive note, she spun on her expensive heels and began her march back to her awaiting Mercedes. It was almost humorous to imagine that she first drove onto the property with butterflies in her stomach when she was leaving in such a refined huff.

Diana rested her hand on the wall next to the steps that would lead her to her car when a prideful voice boomed with an unspoken apology, "You _know_ they won't come to me."

She paused, mostly due to the focus she lent to his tone of voice, how harsh yet frightened it sounded. No longer was he trying to appear coy and falsify his bravado through bargains; Bruce had floundered in convincing her to join his cause by speaking calmly at Kal-El's funeral, he couldn't argue her into a seat at the head of the team, and so he was left with only the option to plead for her assistance. Only, Bruce Wayne pleading was apparently the sort that one had to read between the lines to see.

Diana knew she was exhausted from dealing with his mania but she didn't want to leave him in a state of desperation, as she doubted that they'd have any sort of contact ever again if she did. Turning to face him, she too tried a different perspective in the hopes of communicating her genuine refusal. "I cannot swim underwater like the Aquaman, I cannot run really fast like the boy in the convenience store, I cannot be brought back from the dead by technology—"

"Because you're immortal." A fact she had never once confirmed for him.

Unaware of the point he would make with the truth, she replied, "Yes, I am."

That was all Bruce needed to unveil his own truth through an emotionally-driven rant. "Humans _aren't_ immortal, meaning that, should we require your help again, I can't leave the fate of hundreds or millions on your shoulders if you aren't around. My Kryptonite spear saved all of Metropolis from Doomsday but it was made for a different reason because we didn't know that monster was being created in the heart of the city in the first place. I see criminals of all kinds, all the time, and I don't need help protecting Gotham, but I am being realistic and saying I can't protect the world on my own.

"Now," he exhaled aggressively, angrily as he moved away from his computer desk and approached her at a seemingly calm rate. "You obviously have allies of your own if you thought you could hack into one of our drives to get Luthor's information, and I'm not asking anyone for anything except for you – if we track down the Metahumans that Luthor located, we could be _their_ allies, when they need to save their own cities or even themselves. From everyday villains or their own Doomsday, if it ever happens to them like it did to us."

He stopped roughly three paces away from her so as to appear less predatory than before. The more she had spoken to him, she worried that she had revealed too much of her inner workings in the way she had fought back against his attacks. Hearing Bruce outline his motivation in a manner that did not rely so heavily on deformed alien creatures as it had before made it sound much more sane and pragmatic. Despite his assumption, of course. "I don't have allies, Bruce. I haven't had any for many years now. I have lived on my own and have survived in such a way for decades. As you can guess, the people I knew during the war are no longer alive… All I have been doing since is learning, seeing the world, and trying to keep to myself in peace.

"Never before have I seen a situation like the one the three of us had faced at the harbour, and I pray that it will never happen again. It is with that hope that I plan to return to my life as an antique dealer because I cannot afford to destroy the life I have made for myself, after all this time." It was a concept she doubted Bruce could ever understand. The city of Gotham seemed to be interwoven into every aspect of his life, just as her Amazonian blood mattered most to her; he couldn't know of her banishment, but how could anyone expect her to live after being alone for so long?

She knew she couldn't make him understand what it was like to fear losing your serenity more than anything else, and it made her feel like they' forever be running around in circles.

It took a sliver of bravery for her to reiterate her stance on the matter after being so vulnerable, but she did it. "When you have solid information to work with, I will come to you. I want to help you in any way I can Bruce, I think you know that. I only ask that you have some respect for us 'Metahumans' and what you're asking us to give up in return."

Diana's heart sank as she remembered Steve in that moment, how it felt to watch him give up his life for the greater good. It felt so wrong to be jaded by something that happened one hundred years ago, and yet, it also seemed so cruel to ever let his memory and the associated pain leave her worn and weary body. The thought suddenly helped her to recall the suit in the glass case – the one that she had made so many presumptions about – and found herself adding to her argument in a softened tone of voice, "They need to know what they have to be prepared to lose if they join such a team, as well."

"Yes." Was the answer Bruce gave, so small and yet it managed to catch in his throat and cause him to sound choked by the possibilities. He put a hand to his Adam's apple as if that would solve the issue despite the fact that the word had already been spoken. Still, it made Diana feel a pang of empathy towards the otherwise closed off man before her. Her stare found his, and it was deep within the smouldering taupe colour of his eyes did she spy something familiar.

A recollection of a memory that could never fade away.

One that haunted his existence no matter how much time passed him by.

It was something so subtle and exposing, a hidden detail that required so much prodding and vulnerability of her own to draw out of him in even the most minimal of displays. There, the depths of Bruce Wayne's despair could be glimpsed, reflective of the very same expression she sometimes saw in the mirror on her own face if she ever thought about what it would have been like to have Steve Trevor thriving with her in any century that was without such horrors as the one they met in.

It was signature – the look of heart-wrenching and earth-shattering loss.

She knew he need not be pitied, as a warrior did not require such sentimentalities. Her own grief must have risen up behind her eyes and revealed itself to Bruce as well; they were evenly matched in something for the first time since she entered his bedroom and therefore required no words to finally comprehend one another perfectly. It may not have been the topic she had come into his home to discuss, but it allowed her to see into the Batman's soul in a way that removed the anger she felt in speaking with him – there was more to be found in the silence in moments such as these.

It was a satisfying conclusion to their rather informal meeting. Diana smiled kindly and made sure to nod, bidding goodbye with a tidy, "Mr. Wayne."

In a hushed voice, his hands being shoved into his pockets, Bruce stood his ground and replied, "Miss Prince."

Suddenly, the forgotten Alfred popped up from his seat at his work bench. "Let me see you out, then." He offered in the form of a statement while making his way over to her after wringing his hands on a nearby cloth. Oil-free and much more presentable, the courteous butler acted on behalf of his charge and motioned towards the stairs that would lead her back to her car. She made sure to pull away from the magnetism that was a somber Bruce – the version of him that she found herself much more attracted to than the one she had largely dealt with – and presented her grin to Alfred as he ushered her to the garage.

"Thank you." She felt it was necessary to provide him with her gratitude due to his attentiveness and his unappreciated respectfulness towards her verbal spar with his master.

"Think nothing of it." He promised as he proceeded her once again on the stairs. If she thought on it long enough, she might have described his tone as 'amused'.

The staircase seemed shorter on her way out, as they were approaching her car in what felt like the blink of an eye. "I'll spin the platform around for you," Alfred explained while drawing a circle in the air to illustrate his words. "It's a lot easier than trying to drive out of here in reverse." His attempt at merriment was not lost on her; even though she was still silently focused on what she had learnt about Bruce, the small quip allowed for Diana to enter her car with a genuine giggle. Once she was seated, she reached out to close her car door but was stopped by something clasping the very top of it.

It was of course none other than Alfred, but why he would do such a thing puzzled her greatly. With one palm planted on her door, the other reached into his pocket and lifted out a folded piece of paper. He did not stand too close to her as he handed off the secret note, but he hovered in a way that implied his deviousness.

Before she could inquire, Alfred mumbled for their ears only, "In case you ever need to get into the BatCave and neither of us are home. Someone needs to put him in his place from time to time, so I hope I'll be seeing you again." Then, he closed her door for her like the gentleman he was. The moment was indeed sinister in its own right and the passing of the information occurred so quickly – surely, it was believable to consider him the 'glue' that held the Batman operation together when he had his own tricks up his sleeves that were independent of Bruce himself.

Diana looked down at the paper in her hand and recognized that the contents must have been the reason it felt so heavy. To think she had been gifted access to such a heavily guarded secret after merely standing her ground against the owner of said secret was a rather remarkable conclusion to her excursion. In all honesty, part of her would return if only to have the chance to get to know Mr. Alfred Pennyworth a bit better.

But would she return for the sake of Bruce Wayne?

Only time would tell. For now, it was time to escape the manmade Tartarus and re-emerge into reality, while she still held it in her grasps. She knew he wasn't right about an oncoming threat just yet, but whether she mentioned the Mother Box in one of the Metahumans files or not, Diana knew it was something she would have to be ready to wage war over should another make its presence known.

Then and possibly only then would she enter the BatCave again.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

Wow, 6,137 words! This story deserved it – I collaborated with The_GD_Patman here on FF to create this in-between piece for the DCEU. (I also watched too many videos about Bruce's lake house…it's beautiful but SO impractical?)

PLEASE go to his profile to read Bruce's POV for this story!

There are moments for Bruce and Diana that we never got to see, so we decided to fill in the blanks with our own stories! Yes, I said 'stories' because he is planning to write Bruce's perspective for this particular one-shot, and I'll be sharing it when it's completed! That's so exciting! I hope you enjoyed this story and look forward to what we have coming next! ~ Maiden


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